Young people's perception of the space shuttle disaster: case study

To explore how young people were affected by the space shuttle disaster, the responses of 79 females in 5th, 8th, and 12th grades and 18 males in 5th grade who had witnessed the event on video at school were examined. Six days after the Challenger accident, they were asked to list and rank the three things that had affected them most over the last seven days and to explain the reason behind their first choice. Only 8.9% of the females ranked the space shuttle first, and only 30.4% ranked it in the top three. Competing issues were school-related activities, grades, and family relations. Of the 5th-grade males, 88.9% mentioned the space shuttle and 38.9% saw it as their top concern. For both males and females, this choice was based on sadness and empathy. The youths did not relate the disaster to the fragility of modern technology or the threat of nuclear war. The relatively low response rate of the females who had witnessed this event was interpreted as being indicative of repression-denial. It was concluded that future research should address the extent to which post-crisis denial could be masking more significant psychological trauma in youth.